LOCATIONS & GEOGRAPHY - New

LOCATIONS MOST POSSIBLE…

1. An ancient tomb in Golthien, just beyond the borders of Lentokk… within are signs of Lentokki rule…
2. far earlier than the actual establishment of their nation. How can this be?
3. Twilight Monastery of the Carnal Sisterhood. 1890. San Francisco. Contains the “Harmonic Jars” of “Cosmic Separation.”
4. Keep of the Lunar Lord
5. Isle of Lepers. Small isle in the shadow of the “all tower” (The Opticon) of The Shackles.

Angleport Additions

1. Places and Laws...
2. The collection of lower-income wards in Angleport are sometimes called “The Dogs.”
3. As if to punctuate its status as a free city, the saying goes that even the king pays taxes in Angleport.
4. The realm itself levies no taxes in Angleport, as it would in any true vassal settlement. Angleport therefore only taxes it’s citizens an amount commiserate to the cost of operating and maintaining the city itself.
5. Much money is passed, however, to the Club Masters via guild fees. The Club Masters oversee virtually every sizable guild in the city.
6. More taxes per capita are levied against visitors than residents. From harbor fees to import/export taxes.
7. There are annual business operation taxes to cover city services burdened by commerce. Further, residents with permanent domiciles pay a similar land (apartment) tax annually.
8. There’s also a District Tax, something colloquially known as the “Squatters’ Tax,” which is essentially extortion if you ask the locals, but actually covers individual district operations above and beyond what the city as a whole provides. In theory, Old Town and the Nobles District should pay a higher tax. But they don’t.
9. Business taxes tend to be pretty standardized, but can occasionally vary in the rare circumstances where magic is being employed. That said, actual arcane services are forbidden to be made publicly available.
10. But as the persecution of mages and their ilk has been officially condemned (due to the treaty or contract between the crown and the loose magic affiliation of “The Seekers Alliance”) a code of conduct has been installed regarding the use of the Art within city borders. Public displays of magic are forbidden, and casters must all register with the office of the Chain Magistrate (High Magister of Hex Chain).
11. Casters are bonded and licensed for experimentation within specific boundaries, provided their research is deemed of value to the realm. This can and usually consists of such pursuits as those in response to the development of the Art outside the realm. Defense and identification, as well as an understanding of the lower planes and their minions. Something the populace fears will be employed against them by theoretical invading or otherwise menacing foreigners. The shadow of Lentokk is quite far-reaching.
12. In reality, much more magic is conducted in-city than anyone would ever suspect. Partially due to Club Master fiat, but surprisingly also under scrutiny, and at the pleasure of, the Lord Provident herself.
13. The royal district and municipal district together are called “The Lords.”

The WASTES OF VERIC…

Is it any coincidence that they are situated so close to the magical hub of the West, Varuum? Is there any form of arcane magic that isn’t by nature destructive and life draining?

Oasis in the Desert of Varuum (or Golthien)

Castle Amber exists in a dimensionally transported vale in the heart of the southern desert.

THE CITY IN THE FOLD

ASSIMILATION & the Common Gothen
Melting pot communities. Cultural assimilation.
1. Kelti who live essentially as humans, or at least Vistraal.
2. Humans who echo the great empires of the Solti.
3. In Angleport, everyone is an Angler (Porter?). Community identity comes before any other social or racial identity.

Adventure Ideas & Locales Vast

See also EPISODIC ADVENTURE SEEDS
0. The great Wastes of Veric are expanding. Ghosts of the desert are claiming new frontiers. Border towns, once prosperous, now swallowed by the shifting sands. A slaver town, Xer’xay (Xalta, Xal’Peyaz), south of the desert is in the midst of just such a transition. Could the slaves have brought down the wrath of an ancient desert god on their behalf? Will its wrath stop with their masters, or spread to them as well? Here, at the southern tip of the world, the gods are known by ancient names. Remnants of Methanok. When they walked amongst men. The people here feel a closer connection. They know the gods aren’t dead. The people are “being punished.” But they believe themselves, as the “first men” (cradle of civilization) to be above this judgment.
1. A place where animal lords rule with an iron claw. These may be simple animals, not bestowed with appreciable intellect. Their clandestine q and confounding acts are actually the will of the shadow lord… a telepath or coven of such mentalists.
2. Heist of a sacred object from a mansion within a town that only materializes in the pouring rain. Once it ceases (or the sun shines upon it) the entire town vanishes! The PCs do not. They simply are left on an empty lot. If they are above ground floor, on one of the town’s structures, they will fall to the earth below. Likely taking considerable damage in the process.
3. Are the residents dead? Or merely incorporeal entities from something like the Ethereal plane? Perhaps the PCs can somehow time their own etherealness to coincide with the dematerialization of the town. Could this even be a place they go when they discorporate?
4. If you can actually see (or remember) yourself in ethereal form, you may notice you have no feet! You just sorta float there.
5. It is true that those made ethereal walk amongst the disquiet dead. Those still working out their afterlife and, far worse, those condemned from attaining one - damned to walk the grey mists for all eternity. Probably very pissed about it.
6. The Secret Nexus Points of the West… in Hariel Majour, the Sanguine Order identified places of high magical concentration hidden in plain sight. Many of these were contained in ruins of the far more magically inclined Lumerian Age. There may even be Wyeth settlements built (knowingly or otherwise) over these hot spots. One, for certain, is in the ruins beneath Angleport. Another in the tombs of kings at the Aranost. These power places (converging ley lines and all) could play a major role in the arcane battles to come.
7. An object of great power and significance is required to be liberated from its ancient resting place. It so happens that a large and lurid manse has been constructed over the burial site. To access the object, one must access (and perform not inconsiderable harm to) the manse itself. Not so simple a task. Have you met the noble owner or his taciturn seneschal?
8. A shadow enemy. A godking returned. He, she or it is known only as “Villain.”
9. Villain is not content seated behind bone walls at the heart of the “Always Night.” They became aware of us as we became aware of them. When the seer reached far, daring to gaze into The Unknown Lands.
10. Villain also has “the sight.” What our seer desires, they too covet. We have competition now. A race to the Final Redoubt.

Gothenya World Geography - ADDITIONAL LOCALES

Vo’orla, a chemical manufacturing city in Vorusk… Of old Vala’Suun design.

Emerald Way (Pass)… in the Houlon Empire - road to High Court.
Vale of Honor, in the Horse Lands.
Nadir, large town of Lentokk. Nadi’ir.

Gothenya Geography EXPANDED

1. Isle of Lepers. Small isle in the shadow of the “all tower” (The Opticon) of The Shackles.
2. The collection of lower income wards in Angleport are sometimes called “The Dogs.”
3. As if to punctuate it’s status as a free city, the saying goes that even the king pays taxes in Angleport.
4. The realm itself levies no taxes in Angleport, as it would in any true vassal settlement. Angleport therefore only taxes it’s citizens an amount commiserate to the cost of operating and maintaining the city itself.
5. Much money is passed, however, to the Club Masters via guild fees. The Club Masters oversee virtually every sizable guild in the city.
6. More taxes per capita are levied against visitors than residents. From harbor fees to import/export taxes.
7. There are annual business operation taxes to cover city services burdened by commerce. Further, residents with permanent domiciles pay a similar land (apartment) tax annually.
8. There’s also a District Tax, something colloquially known as the “squatters’ tax,” which is essentially extortion if you ask the locals, but actually covers individual district operations above and beyond what the city as a whole provides. In theory, Old Town and the Nobles District should pay a higher tax. But they don’t.
9. Business taxes tend to be pretty standardized, but can occasionally vary in the rare circumstances where magic is being employed. That said, actual arcane services are forbidden to be made publicly available.
10. But as the persecution of mages and their ilk has been officially condemned (due to the treaty or contract between the crown and the loose magic affiliation of “The Seekers Alliance”) a code of conduct has been installed regarding the use of the Art within city borders. Public displays of magic are forbidden, and casters must all register with the office of the Chain Magistrate (High Magister of Hex Chain).
11. Casters are bonded and licensed for experimentation within specific boundaries, provided their research is deemed of value to the realm. This can and usually consists of such pursuits as those in response to the development of the Art outside the realm. Defense and identification, as well as an understanding of the lower planes and their minions. Something the populace fears will be employed against them by theoretical invading or otherwise menacing foreigners. The shadow of Lentokk is quite far-reaching.
12. In reality, much more magic is conducted in-city than anyone would ever suspect. Partially due to Club Master fiat, but surprisingly also under scrutiny, and at the pleasure of, the Lord Provident herself.
13. The royal district and municipal district together are called “The Lords.”
14. The fabled wonders of the Lentokki Bone Palaces (Spires). Contrary to wide belief, these are not mortared with the bones of slaves, rather that of honored devotees to Ryktuss and his brother Krytuss. The Twain. The Geminae (twins). The Idem (same). Vultus (visage, countenance). The Vindex (avenger, champion)
15. The Mad Intelligence that is The Churn. The waters are almost pure Eret Si’nu, and thus carry a particular, if wholly alien, sentience. Over the past 40,000 years, it has rapidly altered any life unfortunate enough to come into contact with it. But are it’s mutations deliberate or specific? It’s almost as if it’s attempting to create new forms of life? Perhaps in an attempt to make Gothenya more like “home.” In any case, many/most mythological or rumored creatures are a direct product of the water and its ministrations.
16. ROYAL CHAIN GANGS OF THE SILVER MINES…