Darklantern

 Follow up to City of the Siege 

Tenmenfend stands as a ruin of its former self, a double-walled city built around the deep chasm which contains the Darklantern - a pyramid of runed black stone immersed in a shadowy pall.

The neighboring city which has been Tenmenfend's lifeblood collapsed a century years ago, and along with it the commerce that allowed it to prosper. What once were fertile lands in the great-grandsire's time have gradually become cursed with a blight known as Egg Mold, for the foul rotten egg odor it gives off. The people have long forgotten the Green King and his impetus to wipe the Darklantern from existence. All that stay are those too stubborn or fearful to move.

Five hundred people remain. Of them, there are five clans of import: the Watchs, the Sutlers, the Knights, the Diggers, and the Makers. Each can trace their lineage to folk of import in the Green King's glorious army, if they still bothered. What began as roles in the siege has largely intermingled overtime to the point where they are now indistinguishable from one another. Now they’re just meaningless names. Although… An elder or two among them can pass down stories from their grandparents about when that wasn’t the case.

And in all that there is exactly one dying old man, recalcitrantly upholding tradition, who is unknowingly holding back the Darklantern's tide…

THE PLACES OF TENMENFEND

Tenmenfend lies between a double-walled envelopment of the Darklantern. The interior wall facing the toxic chasm and the Darklantern is called The Short Wall by the locals. The exterior wall that once anticipated reinforcements is called The Long Wall, stretching many miles in a perimeter around the city. Both are mighty and high where they've been maintained, reaching 50ft above an incline soggy ditch, with towers and gates long ago converted into now-abandoned homes.

Between the Darklantern and the Short Wall lies the Toxic Chasm, with sheer cliff faces plummeting some 200ft down into mist and poisonous gas. It is traversable by great risk. Some parts of the Short Wall have collapsed down into the chasm as the poison erodes the earth beneath it.

Across the Toxic Chasm lies The Causeway - also called The Bridge of No Return - formed of runed black stone. Like the Darklantern is bears no markings of age, and any structural damage it sustains is repaired in a matter of minutes by the Darklantern's self-replicating structural defense systems, like living tissue healing itself. Overlooking the Causeway is the Tower Inn on one side, and The Evil Eye on the other. The Eye lies just above the Darklantern's gate, seemingly an inert lidless eye carved into the threshold's stone. It fires a disintegration beam at anything crossing the bridge, reducing anything to gas and dust in an instant, save potentially those protected by the archaic defenses once espoused by the Green King.

Tower Inn
Made from an ancient siege tower that was to roll down the Darklantern's Causeway. Facing the bridge of no-return are the remains of a giant basilisk head mouth agape - once housing a giant battering ram. The ram itself, a rectangular prism 20ft long, enchanted with such ancient spells of destruction that it could bring down any gate or wall, now serves as a dining table. If one were to make anything vaguely structurally-dependent upon the table it would immediately collapse. Nobody knows what it is anymore.

Managed by Dorothy Watch and her cousins Dana Watch and Damsel Watch. They make a wonderful mushroom stew that is very slightly hallucinogenic. It tends to kick in when one tries to sleep, giving them potent and strange dreams.

The Watch cousins often dream of infatuation with a beautiful young man, with blonde hair like the sun and bright hazel eyes piercing like diamonds. (It is the Shadow King infecting their dreams in his cryogenic sleep. Even hibernating the King prepares the way for his return.)

GOINGS ON IN TOWER INN (d6):

1. Dana is trying to build a gingerbread house on the ancient battering ram. It keeps crumbling to pieces. She's very frustrated, and thinks the cookie recipe isn't quite right. Or maybe the sugar-glue.
2. Damsel is complaining to Dorothy about wanting to leave. Business isn't what it used to be, and lots of people have moved away already. Misfortune seems to rule this land now. "No use staying in a sinking ship."
3. Three farmers retiring after a long day with some ale and stew. Speaking about the mold growing over their crops - it's bad this year. Horrible violet stuff: chokes out plants and withers everything it touches, gets in the food and spoils it. One of the farmers swore he saw a clump of it moving... The other two don't want to believe him.
4. Mayor Bill Sutler is here, gambling with some mercenaries at liar's dice and losing badly. The mercs are doppelgangers and are reading his thoughts. He's about to put up his family house, against everything he's lost, and lose. Secretly he's almost hoping for this outcome. He wants to take his family and leave town.
5. Doppelganger meeting. A dozen folk all eerily turn their heads at the same time when somebody enters the inn, then simultaneously go back to pretending to talk to one another. They're having a secret telepathic meeting, and you just interrupted by arriving.
6. An old man falls down. Hanlon Digger, sulfur miner. It's the bad kind of fall when you're old and frail. He can't walk anymore. Someone will say: "The vapors finally caught up to him. Happens to everyone who lives by the chasm."

Church of the Bivouac

A pavilion tent which has stood for a thousand years, as the Pavilion Priest Expeditious will attest. He is a balding but subtly fit man, capable of feats and strength and knows every rope knot in existence. Glorious back in its heyday, the tent itself is a Ship of Theseus of tents. Big like a big top tent. Mighty ropes adorned with faded green ribbons. Patterns of a basilisk’s curved horns and their searing eyes adorn the cloth. Horned warriors in green livery fight trench soldiers and bone giants commanded by frail old men wearing fractal-pattern masks.

Expeditious offers ritual: libations of wine soaked into long triangular banners, flown on the wind in offering to the heavenly gods and Flax - a local god of cloth and strength. Flax is said to be a saint who apotheosis’d in the days of old. He was a harbinger for the Green King, who designated the very foundations of this church for his masters great Pavilion Tent (of which we now stand!).
Flax is depicted on icons of cloth and on flags as a rather pointy green-haired knight. He grants blessings for: finding the proper ground, foraging, riding, and feasting. Such blessings can be used to automatically succeed dice checks made in those topics, to maximum result.

Curiosity Shop
Built into the catacombs that were once siege trenches. Minded by a changeling named Miss Curiosity - the child of a doppelganger spy from the Darklantern and a wandering woman. She is a marvel of feathers and expensive (looking) stones. A generalist in all things magical and a purveyor of information. She knows many things (for a price!).

Wrapped up in mystic-seeming auguries and divinations, she’ll offer her ancestral knowledge of the Darklantern for barters, deals, and binding promises. She knows the ways in. She knows that the poisoning of the land is due to the Darklantern. She’s hedging her bets… The Heroes prevail, she’ll buy up the pickings. Darklantern unleashed, she’s loyal to the new regime.

CURIOSITIES FOR SALE:

1. A silver (tundsted) amulet. Can be used to cross the Causeway without provoking The Evil Eye. Quite expensive. 1000g. (The one on display is a fake, made of only silver! Worth 50sp) She'll only bring this up if an interest in the Darklantern is given.
2. Preserved biological abomination from the Chasm. Undecipherable mass of flesh submerged in alcohols. Dredged up by a youth twenty years ago. Would fit well in any freak show or wizard's lab. Also makes a good conversation starter! 20gp
3. One cigarette. Called a ‘smokestick’. Brings vitality and focus! Acquired from a western trader. 10gp
4. Ancient Fire. Kept in a jar. Alchemist’s fire, but five times as potent. Strong enough to burn through even the Darklantern's exterior (although Miss Curiosity doesn't know that for sure). 70gp
5. Saint Flax’s Sock. A woolen sock worn by the Harbinger himself! Kept in a precious metal box. Wearing it increases ride speed by 10ft and causes Horses to always like you. Won it in a game of cards from Expeditious. She'll play again for similar stakes. 500g
6. Eyeware. A bin of veils, cheap hats, and hoods. Anything bearing the Eye of the Darklantern may protect one from its denizens… perhaps. 1-10gp based on item. There's a loose and torn Mold Priest veil with one black circle on it - denoting the lowest priestly rank. Repairing and wearing it grants immunity to the Darklantern's point defense.
   
   

Megaham’s Hovel
Old Man Megaham runs the traditional parade still, all by himself, around the entire perimeter of the city. Fifteen miles, once per week. If he dies as ordained in three weeks, the parades stop, and the automated defenses of the Defenders will recognize that all external resistance has finally subsided, provided nobody else takes up the apparently futile cause. It will begin to wake them up… soldiers from the Wars of Old, one by one from their long slumber.

Megaham is an impoverished lonely grump. Immensely traditional, and given he has no real authority, immensely unlikable. If someone is actually kind or curious enough to join him on the parade, he’ll spend the whole time complaining about it.

A parade consists of a lot of walking, some praying, a bit of banging, and a moderate amount of shouting.

THINGS MEGAHAM WILL COMPLAIN ABOUT

(d6, or whatever's appropriate):

1. "Whatever happened to walking right? Children nowadays don't know their feet from their asses!"
2. "You call that a prayer?? No wonder the gods hate us!"
3. "Adventurers these days are nothing but god-cursed heretics and cooked sausages! In my youth we used to have pride in what we did! They acted like it, too. Not like you lot!"
4. "Why do you travel with these demented gremlins?" (Saying to one party member, pointing to others.)
5. "The fact that you haven't offered to carry me -your elder!- betrays your ignobility. This is why we have no heroes anymore. Because of lots like you!"
6. "Don't you lot ever shut up? Folk used to say less and do more! Nowadays they need a committee to take a shit!"

His hovel is an untidy mess, as he has nobody to take care of him. It contains a beat-up cot, a second set of clothes, a bloody bedpan (due to his terminal bowel disease), and his parade gear: a faded green standard, a pointy green hat, and his walking shoes.

Knight Manor
Albatross Knight is the big man around here. Rouster of the town militia (about 30 people at this point, mostly relatives). ‘Greeter’ of suspicious travelers. Guaranteer of the law. The Knights are relatively numerous, and live in a big house of faded glory on the highest hill. He wears the green tabard bearing the basilisk. He carries an heirloom sword.

The family's wealth has been generationally sold off in order to maintain its position. At this point, the only thing of worth that have are big stone walls, fancy silverware, and Albatross's sword Stonefang.

Stonefang - a relic side sword wielded by the first of the Green King's knights. It is more important to Albatross than some of his children and it never leaves his side. Biological minions of the Shadow King must Save or turn to dust when struck by it, and other bitten by its blade must Save or receive accelerated Tetanus. It will not dull or break save by a Disintegrate spell or higher. It also reveals the presence of the Shadow King's minions when drawn - making Doppelgangers take their true form - something Albatross would quickly learn if ever he deigned to unsheathe it.

His biggest concerns:

• Crops  are doing poorly. The blight is spreading. He’ll offer his daughter and his son in marriage to anybody(s) who can fix the problem. (They’re twins!) It would be really weird to marry them both (but he’s not against it if results are produced).
• The fortifications need repairs (they’ve needed repairs for literally about ten generations). Know any excellent masons? He’ll settle for a half-decent carpenter.
• Twenty square miles of toxic north of the Darklantern lies the Cannon Swamp. Ancient trenches and tunnels flooded with the foul waters of the chasm. The remnants of an ancient cannon shaped like a basilisk’s head stick oblong out. Vines of creepers grow over it. Sickly goblins live in the swamp, subsisting on big horse flies and stomach-churning molds. They are "sickly and barely a threat to anybody", but Albatross is concerned that they're stealing food and multiplying. (Which they are, although it's the doppelgangers stealing food. All part of destabilizing their defenses.)

Digg's Place
There's no sign or markings to indicate that this is Digg's Place. It's nothing more than an abandoned home wedged between two other even more abandoned homes that Digg bought for the cost of a (mostly) safe-to-eat ham sandwich. But you'll know it from the smell. It smells like savory cooked meat, and sulfur - like the Egg Mold plaguing the land. Digg takes rotting food and carves the edible bits out of it with a dull knife. He spends half of his time scavenging for carcasses and moldy grains to make meat skewers and fouled ale out of. It all tastes actually quite decent... but you'll have chicken shits for a week.

Digg not infrequently gets accused of purposely spreading the Egg Mold, which is why he lives in the abandoned outskirts of town. The townsfolk cuss and kick at him for trying to sell tainted meat and ale, which in yester years would have put him in the stockades, but nowadays people don't even bother, as they're wise to his act.

See him on the streets, and he'll be a smiling ragged man: missing a few teeth, hands full meat skewers wedged between the fingers, all excitement and hustle like he's liquifying his assets before the recession.

Which, to be fair, is exactly what he's doing. He wants to leave, but can't seem to save enough supplies to go. Still, he is too proud to beg. In his mold-dusted bed he tosses and turns in his sleep, prophesizing doom for the town. His screaming rarely reaches others' ears. He's so frail that even a solid kick could send him into seizure, and scream a doom:

DIGG'S DOOMS (d6):

1. "SHADOWS! SHADOWS BEHIND THE EYES! SHADOWS BEHIND THE SKINS! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE, EVERYWHERE!!"
2. "TEN TRILLION HUNGRY LITTLE STALKS!! THEY WILL DEVOUR THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE AND THE LIVESTOCK ALL!"
3. "IIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAHHHH!... THE BEAUTIFUL FACE MASKS FORMLESS VOID! IT WILL DEVOUR THE WORLD! IIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
4. "THE GREEN KING CANNOT SAVE US! HE IS FOREVER GONE, AND HIS SUCCESSORS DO NOT KNOW THEIR WORTH!"
5. "THE POISON WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE LAND - A HARBINGER FOR THE ARMIES OF DARKNESS WHICH WILL BRING THE WORLD INTO SHADOW!"
6. "THE SWORD! THE SWORD! THE SWORD IS SALVATION, BUT IT IS NOT MEANT FOR THEY IT HANGS ABOVE!"

The Bakers Maker
It smells like warm bread and mushroom stew, heavy with spicy mustard seasoning. The childless bakers, Charles and Matilda Maker, make good bread and stew, but their real passion is botany. They're tight-lipped about where they get the fresh herbs, but they give out cuttings often enough that nobody presses the issue.

In the ruins of neighbors homes, they have a secret garden inherited from Matilda's side of the family, mother to daughter, since the time of the Green King. In a hidden atrium between four houses, behind a secret door unlocked by a hidden candlestick lever, are her greatest treasures: spinach, parsley, chives, basil, oregano, dill, rosemary, basil, a pear tree, and even tropical limes - green fruits and herbs that have no business growing in such little light. The secret of it all lies in the center, at the ancient statue of a kneeling maiden, holding a vine-covered grail of aged copper: The Grail of the Green King.

Touched by the Green King's lips when he still walked the land, water kept in the Grail, when spilled upon the earth, provides ample fertility to green-colored crops. Even tropical fruits like limes. More than that, it has the power to dispel the devastation of the Egg Mold, and can wither the fungal forces mastered by the mold priests within the Darklantern without fail.

...But Matilda doesn't know that. Charles does, but that's because a doppelganger replaced him a about a month ago. The real Charles was thrown into the Toxic Chasm by his replacement - his shattered body is dissolving on a rock somewhere down in the mist, embalmed by the foul gasses. Mattie thinks they may both be losing theirs mind. She loves Charles very much, and to learn of his grisly demise or malicious replacement would devastate her beyond sanity.

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION FOR A WOMAN WHO'S LOSING HER MIND... (d6):

1. "Charles always loved extra dill in his mushroom soup. Always! And now he can't seem to stand it at all!"
2. "He's always following me when I leave the house. He thinks I can't see him, but I know my husband's footsteps anywhere. I thought he was just looking out for me, but I'm not so sure anymore."
3. "People have asked me whether Charles was acting strange. I told them I didn't know what they were talking about. They said that he acted like he didn't even know them."
4. "Is it me? I feel like I've been forgetting things more and more often. Why, just last week I forgot that I had some loaves in the ovens, and burnt a whole batch! Charles was furious, and he raised a hand against me - he's never done that before."
5. "Things aren't all bad! Charles stopped snoring recently. He'd done it for so many years I'd gotten used to it, but to have a quiet night like that was quite nice."
6. "I think we may have a child on the way! At last, after all these years! I'd almost given up on hope."

WAYS TO GET INSIDE THE DARKLANTERN

AMULET
A plain metal amulet depicting a closed eye. In True Darkness (such as a Darkness spell), the eye will be open and visible, revealing its true nature. The Shadow King can see through these when open, and will sometimes open on their own when nobody is looking.

The Defenders have always been watching. Every so often they’d send out a spy to recon the besiegers' defenses. These spies were given tungsten amulets to identify them to the automated defense systems, which won’t shoot at anybody who is displaying one of these amulets. A few of them never returned, and the amulets are still out there. One or two of them even remain in Darklantern, passed down as secret family heirlooms to spies who settled outside the walls.

BATTERING RAM
The Ram in the Tower Inn, if it can even so much as touch the front gate of the Darklantern will rip it apart like paper mache. The Ram is indestructible, but the people carrying it are not immune to the Darklantern's laser defense systems.

HOUSE

One of the Houses is ‘cursed’ according to the locals. Used to be owned by a Sutler family, but all of them went missing. The braver of the townsfolk investigated and found a big dark hole in the basement wall. They sealed up the hole and the house, and nobody has gone in it since. It offers a way into the pyramid, albeit through a horrible siege line tunnel filled with toxic gas.

CHASM

The chasm between the pyramid and Darklantern is deep and long, but one could potentially climb down into that dark pit. The bottom is filled with toxic waste, and horrible things dwell down there, but a disposal sewer entrance can be found in the mist. It’s an awful climb down and an awful climb up. The mist emanating from the Darklantern erodes the walls of the chasm, making unsure footing and rockslides likely.

NAME DROP /  WHITE FLAG

If one goes out onto the causeway and declares that they are an emissary of The Green King seeking to present terms for the castle’s surrender, then the automated defenses will let you in. They’ll wake up somebody capable of making a decision (The Assessor being most likely) to meet you and discuss the terms in the Darklantern's Muster Yard, just inside the gate . Something similar will happen if you take a white flag onto the causeway. It would take a brave fool to try this approach.

WALL BREACH

It's incredibly dangerous, but one could attempt to burn a hole into the Darklantern's exterior. It would take a world-shattering force, and it'll heal up in a matter of minutes, but you may be able to slip in unnoticed before it crushes everyone in the derma. Madame Curiosity's fire oil may do the trick, as might a Disintegrate spell or Passwall.

Class Social Features

Unsatisfied with the number of class features in PF2e/5e that pertained to the social characteristics of each character class, I went and wrote a few. The idea is that every player gets to pick one for their character. Character class need not match up with the corresponding ability below. So a wizard could take the 'Bard' ability, etc.

But everybody wanted two of them, so I said: "Well, okay. You can get a second one at level 10 or something."

Barbarian

You are accountable to traditions and customs that are not local to this land. If ever you do a faux pas, you may stake a claim to a foreign authority or tradition to absolve you of your crime. You are only ever guaranteed to get away with this once for each type of offense and group of people. It does not protect you from particularly severe consequences (like murder), but you may be able to, say, insult the mayor of a town or sleep with a wealthy merchant's daughter.

Bard

When you recap the last session at the start of this one, however you recap it become the history of the party. Your recap becomes a song, poem, or story that's shared wide and far. As you continue to develop this history, you will gradually become more famous.

Cleric

As a 1 Turn Ritual, you can spiritually determine whether a place is consecrated or desecrated (whether gods are watching or not). You can tell whether your devoted god is watching at any time instantly. If your god is watching and you do something glorious, you will be bequeathed a blessing.

Druid

You can concisely recount any knowledge you possess orally. You know the age of anything at a glance. You are exempt from all taxes. You may freely Speak with Animals provide you apologize to said animal and give them something tangibly valuable to you (a ration, a gold piece, a craft that took time to make, etc. Bigger animals like bigger/more things). You are forbidden from writing down your knowledge.

Fighter

You can assess anybody's physical 'Power Level' at a glance. The more time you spend studying them, the less vague your determinations.

Monk

Your personage is considered sacred. Any offense against your body is considered a sin. Anyone who's not a total rube will know it. If gods are watching, they'll know it.

Paladin

You instinctively know when oaths that you have professionally witnessed have been broken. This power does not tell you which one of those you've witnessed. You have a legal right to take from an oathbreaker that which they swore upon, and deliver it to authorities you recognize (state, religious, or otherwise).

Ranger

You know hidden pathways, water sources, and supply caches due to your membership in a Ranger's association. Each Association has about a half-dozen members, and oversees the wilderness and roads of the region you are currently adventuring in. Once per [a convenient amount of time] they all meet somewhere interesting - a smoky bar, a sacred grove, a place of power - to discuss professional matters.

Rogue

You can tell what class a person is by studying them for a minute, even if they're trying to hide it, unless they're an extraordinary actor. You always know the minimum acceptable bribe for a given situation.

Warlock

Your oathbreaking and lies cannot be detected unless you want it to (false negatives are automatically generated), even by magical means, even by a Paladin. You may masquerade as any other magic caster, and only masterful magicians can tell the difference by your practices.

Wizard/Sorcerer

You are part of a Wizard Gang, College Fraternity/Sorority, or Secret Society. You can instantly identify members of this organization, and you know their Cult Sign to verify it. Members are friendly by default, and will usually do their best to help you out. In any town you can spend a Watch to find fellow cultists.

CALIDUM - Twilight City

 CITY INTRODUCTION
GALEA
FUMO
BRIGHT TOWN
POMERIUM
CALDERA
CALIDUM
HISS
TENEBRIS
MOUNTAIN TEMPLE

Source: Rastislav Kubovic

CALIDUM

It’s warm enough here to make one sweat without armor, just the way the deep-dwellers like it. It feels like being in a barn attic in a hot summer, and smells about as pleasant. They pipe magma up from the depths in big stone tubes that radiate heat like an oven. Touch one get second degree burns. People stay well away. Slaves often don't have a choice.

Rarely are so many people squeezed into so narrow and hot a place so callously. There's always the sound of someone screaming, near or far, like cicadas in the distant wood or right inside your bedroom. The Grand Flesh Markets hide the suffering and ecstasy in fractal spaces of honeycombs upon honeycombs, down to the most remote of small places that can be a mere foot-leap away.

A primarily mercantile district, in which many of the Lesser Houses with their new money build their estates. A single giant hole to the sky in which all air is vented upwards gives the impression of all the space and freedom in the world. For good and ill, it gives people hope.

The Temple of Beauty

The acolytes and priestesses of the Temple of Beauty are unmistakable, for in their devotion they seek to emulate the "interminable Form of the gods". This study irreparably warps their flesh. Their eyes are far bigger than the outliers of their species, sometimes two or three times as large: big soft wet orbs with expressive depth, sometimes over the line of the uncanny. Their bodies plunge towards voluptuousness, towards softness and roundness like paleolithic fertility goddesses. Eyes bigger, bodies rounder, it all cumulates at the totality of the eye and the sphere, where Beauty is beheld. To the foreigner this transformation can seem horrific.

The Temple is a pillared dome, like the Pantheon. A single aperture in the ceiling welcomes in the light of the sun and the moon captured by a mirror array on its peak. Acolytes and servants busy themselves in serving the study of beautiful forms and debating what makes them so. Side chapels host mirrors, nearly all subtly warped and curved to accentuate certain parts - and as one sees reality eventually becomes.

Its greatest treasure, Beauty, painted by the divine artist Acerion during the reign of the second Spider Queen Amantia, lies in such a side chapel, guarded by a network of acolytes and priestesses and finally The Eye Tyrant Azrith'rir - the epitome of the temple's philosophy. The journey to it, though, can be severely disorienting. As the flesh of the acolytes warps the deeper one goes, so too does the space. The hallways seem to bend against gravity. Rooms seem too large or small to pass through. There are too many mirrors, too many watching eyes. Then eyes within eyes within eyes...

The acolytes and priestesses of the Temple of Beauty are highly desired, not just for their spherical appearance (which the drow find irresistible) but for their blessed countenance. It is believed that the mere proximity of this beauty grants favorable divine disposition in all matters: business, pleasure, and war.

C1: Two Wine-Stained Youths

Statues depicting two sons in merriment, each clasping a tipping cup. Stale wine soaks their feet and the chalices of many beseechers litter the ground. The shrine is always tended by two drunk brothers, and when they can no longer stand they are replaced by two others. It's a fanciful life for a beggar-acolyte, to live on offerings of wine and more wine.

The story goes that these two brewed the first venom-wine: fermented mushrooms mixed with honeywasp venom. It made them drunk-high for a week, and gave offered gods such a buzz that they forgot their obligations to their nations. Three patron gods of archery, justice, and masonry nursed hangovers while their cities were sacked.

The Baelic Bathes

House Bael, Lessers of great wealth from moneylending, offer the most scalding and chilling of baths in the entire city. For those who really enjoy their hot baths to be literally scalding, or cold as ice. Frequented by athletes preparing their bodies for the Baelathon - yearly games of strength and endurance of which the primary contests are climbing, swimming, and exposure.

Snow is brought down from Galea and magma pumped up from Tenebris to offer baths both literally boiling and ice cold. For the most extreme of customers, they even offer magma rooms and pools of near-frozen mercury, liquid at much lower temperatures than water.

The Kordelian Arena

Paid for by the graces of wealthy House Kordelia. Sometimes called "The Black". It is a vertical amphitheater of 180 degrees: patrons can watch through holes in the ceiling, standing above and sneering down at the fights below. It's customary to toss down fine drink and food to victors.

 Judicial fights are most prominent in this arena: prisoners being executed for religious crimes, being fed to monsters or carved up by rude gladiators. Avadia di la Kordelia is the Master of Ceremonies and Executor of the Law. She is every bit as bloody and theatric as her reputation precedes. Overseeing these proceedings is the Idol of Ikord-Victory, who is as eager as anyone to see good contest.

Sometimes the Arena will host unusual exhibition fights, particularly on religious festivals: tunnel fighting, with the floor replaced by glass and an ant colony dug underneath; orcish aquathon, underwater wrestling with the arena flooded; demon baiting, as dangerous as it sounds.

Stepmonger's Guild

The grand guild house of vertical porters, elevator operators, roofers, ladder lenders, and stair guards. Resembles a tower a princess might be imprisoned in, but a bit broader and grander. The stairs ascending to the building begin level with the rest of the district, and climb ten stories high near straight up, so that the guild can keep a watch on its monopoly of height. A monopoly minded by force: use anything even resembling the a ladder, without the guild's permission, and you'll be visited by ladder-breaking thugs when you sleep. Easier to just pay the guild its fee or give up your dreams of ascension.

Services, from most expensive to least expensive, also from highest guild rank to lowest:

• Elevator: The guild operates an elevator that goes from Mountain Temple to Calidum. It is essentially a big loading elevator, managed by the Castle Priests of House Ronove, who wear boxy shoulderpads and pray to the ropes. Typically used to move expensive, fragile goods or religious idols during holidays.
• Stair Guards: intimidating enough to hold a portal and demand money. Usually there's no charge for going down stairs, only up.
• Roofers: fixing roofs, floors, and cables. Requires good balance and solid training.
• Ladder Lenders: they rent ladder usage and do thuggery on unsanctioned ladders, or anything approaching an unsanctioned ladder.
• Vertical Porters: they carry heavy things up and down stairs, and are trained on perilous stairs like mountain mules. Most guild members are this. Considered the dregs of the guild, and often get hazed or bullied by more senior members.

Hilla de Ronove is guildmaster: a Lesser of great power and influence, whose House god is Ronald the Castle. A statue-shrine to his smiling self dominates the guild hall. (If you're picturing a ten foot statue of Ronald McDonald, you're not far off.) Hilla is a greedy and capricious woman: rotund but incredibly fit (she does climb stairs and ladders basically all day), surrounded by hefty bodyguards, richly dressed. She spends much of her time playing the Greater Houses against each other so that she can maintain her House's dominance. Otherwise, she realizes, they would all gang up against her.

Barber

Cleanliness and hairlessness are important to social standing in November. And "To get the smoothest cut you will need a good barber from Choom and Daughters." There are no finer body scrapings in November! They will get those pesky, shameful hairs, from crown to darkest reaches, and at very affordable prices. Advertised frequently, particularly in the neighboring baths.

Choom is a kobold, and has the patronage of House Kaisar, whose god is a sharp knife - a favorable match for any barber, no doubt. Manumitted a kobold generation ago, Choom dreams of sending her daughters, now citizens, into the military for plunder, glory, and advancement. She's quite optimistic for the future, having just bought some tall steady-standing skeletons to reach high places for her.

Gods' Glories Gladitor Family

The preeminent gladiatorial school in November, funded by House Kordelia and run by Invincible Andrus -  a man said to have ate the flesh of dragons and acquired their strength. He has that kind of dragonborn look to him, for certain. He has never lost a match against man or beast, but he is starting to get on in years, so he's been freed and retired to gladiatorial instruction. His saying goes: "If you're going to die, die well." One day, in his mind, he'll live up to this code.

Kordelia is most famous for hosting games of exotic monster fighting, and often buys creatures from foreign hunters and traders at exorbitant fees for this purpose. As such, the Gods' Glories train to fight them, but also to serve as loyal bodyguards for the matron and her family. Nobody wants to fight a gladiator in the streets, much less a Glory monster hunter who can wrestles beasts that eat man.

That said, their reputation and fearsome appearance is largely what keeps them dominant. Few are willing to test themselves against the best the House of Victory has to offer, and that means they're more bark than bite when fighting against people.

Breadmaker

Grains are a novel food to the Novans. A diet of sunless crops like protean algae and bitter mushroom wine make bread taste sweet as cupcake. It's cheap enough now that the common folk can afford it, and they can't get enough of it. It's always in demand. The breadmaker Harember always runs out of the big round cracked loafs. Broad-shouldered, square chin, stocky like his Ember ancestors and highly tolerant of heat - this man is like a Hercules of breadmakers. He's got no time. Always busy. Shrine to Lera, god of spawn and erection out front. Makes sense - doesn't bread also rise, like mushrooms and penises? This is how bakers get the reputation for fecundity.

Cloud District

Moisture catches and lingers on the inside rim of the caldera, where the Cloud District apartments snake up the inside walls of the mountain like veins from the aeorta of the city. A great many people live here along the narrow and treacherous stairs. They quickly become used to climbing or else they become used to falling. There are no guardrails, and some paths seem more for mountain goats than man. It's not uncommon to hear of someone 'unfortunately plummeting', particularly if they crossed the Stepmongers.

To prevent this fate, many stairs in the Cloud District have little shrines to Orienio on the first step, depicting a hooved god of the mountains holding a curved staff like a shepherd's hook. Prayers can help find sure-footing and decisive action when needed.

C2: The Owl-Headed Man

Expressions can be tricky to read on a bird's face, but luckily the horned owl always expresses the contempt it feels. Man from the neck down, owl from the neck up. He holds scales in the right hand and collects offerings in the left. People leave him bloody hearts.

He is the patron god of the Measurers Guild, and they do not speak his name for fear of catching his judging eyes. Petitioners make offerings when they have an important decision to make: hefty business transactions, coupling proposals, joining the army. The Owl-Headed Man offers wisdom and augury. The Measurer's Guild, however, are a corrupt bunch. Sometimes by trickery they tip the scales one way or the other, and they take bribes to influence results.

The Practical Market

In the forum before the Owl-Headed Man lies The Practical Market, where the Measurer's Guild does their business. Upon the many divine scales are people judged and weighed against the seemingly impossible standards established by the Guild. What is the measure of a man? At the Practical Market they would know.

On any given day between one hundred and five thousand enslaved people, cattle, and creatures make their way through the bureaucracy of the Practical Market. The masters of the Measurers Guild know them all to terrifying detail. How do you measure a slaves loyalty? A bodyguard's courage? A chattel's hope? They know: by fanatically-guarded standards and systems of 'new numbers' have they reduced life to their scales.

Yet still there is corruption: Measurers are often bribed to the pleasure of buyer and seller and sometimes even the measured. Hints, perhaps, of cracks in the system. One might think that absolute knowledge of the measure of man would withhold their cynicism, but to the contrary it seems to flourish. Perhaps the measures are not as foolproof as is claimed...

The Living Pits

It's as awful as it sounds: anywhere from one to ten thousand living enslaved peoples and livestock kept in pits or stone cages. Disease is common, as is cruelty, callousness, and indifference. The more successful November's military campaigns are, the worse it gets.

The guards and overseers are all privately managed, with stipends paid for either by the Measurer's Guild or their employing Houses. The only one who feasibly keeps them in check is the Priestess Glomia di la Vassago, who has religious authority to chastise both overseer and slave under the invocations of foreign law-giving gods, but it concerned more with 'right behavior' and a smoothness of proceedings, rather than kindness. Still, the imprisoned people look up to her for protection, as they have no-one else.

In the darkest corners of the Pits, people whisper with spiders and dream of vengeance against their masters. The outlawed Cult of Poisons lives on in unbroken chain from slave to slave, teaching conspiratorial secrets: how to make the poison, how to administer it, and how not to get caught. They listen and forget the recipes, to remember them in dreams later on, becoming sleepers for the whispered outlaw goddess. It is as the Priestesses would fear: the forsaken matron-god of the dead monarchy lives on, fostering betrayal and the righteous consumption of noble flesh.

The Dead Pits

It's hard to imagine a place worse than the Living Pits, but here it is: where the flesh of the matronless dead becomes bound in servitude until their bodies grind to dust. Chilled by corridors bored through the mountain wall, the Dead Pits are a feast for the enterprising necromancer. Dead beggars, debtors, unclaimed foreigners, and the dead enslaved are brought here. Anyone who would have been buried without honors or acclaim ten generations ago are now fodder for the machine of civilization, to be resurrected and put to work by their previous owners or the state.

The necromancers are tireless. There aren't quite enough of them to keep up with inventory, so they inhale vapors prepared down in Tenebris to keep them alert and potent in magic. Some haven't slept in months, and it shows on their faces: they call it 'death mask'. Principle among the accountants of the risen dead is Tulia di Fingol-Mar, of the House of Worms. She ensures that the Worm God gets their due: innards and organs taken from zombies and skeletons to-be, fed to the worms for their god's necromantic blessing. It's an economic necromantic engine: bodies get blessings to make zombies, to acquire more bodies to get more blessings.

The job of collecting bodies for the Dead Pits is so horrid, disrespected, and dangerous than only the most dishonored of undead do it. These Drudges are November's lowest of the low, and are forbidden from most places in the city.

Cloth Dealer

Cloth dealing is a cutthroat business. The best and most profitable silks are low in supply, and loyalty is an alien concept to the spiders of Tenebris. Those who mean to outbid Glasya di Bael will need to contend with her hired muscle in the Pickhand Family. She pays them partially in discounts on expensive silks, making them the best-dressed gangsters in the city.

Cloth and color are at the heart of class. It is easy to masquerade as your betters, provided your can buy or steal the proper wardrobe. Bolts of cloth, enough to weave an outfit, in terms of cost relative to the earnings of the average shroom farmer:

One Month's Work: Myzal. Spun torn fibers from structural mushroom varieties by the teeth of Tenebri harvesters. Cold when it's cold, and hot when it's hot. The poor man's cloth. Often better to wear nothing at all, save for the shame of nakedness.

Two Month's Work: Downy Wool. The birdherd's prospect. Keeps one warm in the mountains, but itchy and somewhat smelly. Painfully insulating in the hot mountain deep. Popular among working class in Fumo.

One Years Work: Catcher Silk. Spun from the webs of Catcher Spiders in the deep. Lightly sticky, but very comfortable. Common adornment for well-to-do peoples of all stripes.

Hundred Years Work: Widow Silk. Bought with flesh and curated spider-mates. Produced in the deepest darkest of pits by the grand Widows of the deep. The mainstay of the patrician class, further made costly by expensive dyes. Feels like a second skin, and is as strong as chainmail.

Ten-Thousand Years Work: Royal Silk. Made by the descendants of the ignominious Spider Goddess, of which all but two known remain. To wear this is to declare yourself royalty or god. Worn only during triumphs by those who have accomplished Invocatio - the theft of a god. Said to grant utter invulnerability, and feels like the warm embrace of the divine.

Public Granary

Public grain for public use, as determined by the Priestesses of the Temple of November. Most often it's contracted to bakers to make bread for public games. Sometimes surplus is given to the legions. You would be surprised how dangerous it is: for guarding the grain is a hypoxic labyrinth to which only the Priestesses are privy.

In the early days of the city, grain theft was common. Criminals were common, yes, but also fiery things from the wild volcano below. A combustible spirit loves nothing more than setting alight wheat. It's practically they're favorite thing to burn! And so in those early days the houseless stonecutter Hanon constructed a defense: the hypoxic labyrinth.

The storerooms are guarded by winding passageways, chokepoints, and hypoxic sumps. Perhaps fire could creep into a cell here or there and snatch some grain, but all of them? Unlikely. Difficult for thieves, too, since there are traps and false ends and confusing motifs to strangle a wizened adventurer. Every so often tale will be told of a grain thief become lost and buried in 'heavy air'. Their corpses are put on public display to dissuade other thieves. Evidently, it doesn't always work.