Thywicket
Thywicket is built along the back of a gigantic caterpillar. Stretching over five hundred feet long, the giant insect steadily consumes the plants of the plains as it slowly crawls across the landscape. Thywicket is unique in being able to strip corruption from plants, and segregate it into the waste of the worm. The bile in its gut is a powerful magic condenser and precipitator. Due to the nature of how the caterpillar moves, most of the buildings are smaller wood shacks and huts, built on stilts that allow the body to pulse under them while remaining upright. In the center of the caterpillar lies its largest building, the House of the First Ascension. Also called “the Cocoon” by the faithful, this building has a large statue of a moth wreathed by a halo. The walkways are dimly lit by a faint blue to teal light from streetlamps which harness the magic and bioluminescence of the caterpillar.
The citizens have a reputation for being odd and religious. Increased zeal has affected their trade with other roaming cities, slowly pushing away their allies until Thywicket stands alone. A large portion of the population attends the Church of the First Ascension, a cult built around revering the caterpillar and its upcoming transformation. People are both hopeful and fearful of the coming metamorphosis. As the metamorphosis approaches, they've become truly fanatical, with clusters of workers in the poor district organizing secretive meetings.
Defences
Thywicket has several layers of defence, from the caterpillar and its inhabitants.
Anti-city Defences
- Six ballistae around the city can be unfolded and raised or lowered to different levels. They have nearly 360 degrees of motion, and an incredible range and accuracy. The ropes are spun from the caterpillar's silk.
- Venomous spines protect the rear half of the city. Covered in wickedly barbed urticating hairs, these can be swung at attackers.
- Powerful mandibles can cut and crush anything from mutated plants to the stone of the Coral Forest. Several cities have fallen to the jaws of Thywicket.
Inner City Defences
- Clockwork guards can be activated from the council offices. Stored in hidden booths under the walkways until activated. When the signal is sent, these booths are ratcheted up to the walkways, and the automatons begin to patrol.
- Several members of the council are experienced magic users, able to to cast a variety of spells.
Industry & Trade
Thywicket has strong but discreet trading connections with Cindalia, whose scientists paid in engineering expertise and clockwork automatons for the rights to study metamorphosis. Cindalia built the gimbals that keep the city upright and in place.
Thywicket also trades heavily in partially refined metals; as the city eats its way across the plains, the very hungry caterpillar does not discriminate what gets sent down its gullet. metal from old battle sites, broken wagons, or dead cities get crushed, reshaped, and passed by the powerful digestive system of Thywicket. Scavenging crews simply hop off the city with carts, grab the lumpen metal, and return by following the swath of cut grass.
Infrastructure
A prominent feature of Thywicket's architecture is the array of stilts holding up the buildings. Key joints of the stilts are connected to rotating gimbals, which are set to allow a short range of motion. Combined with counterweights on the struts, the rotation allows the city structure to stay upright and mostly at the same height while the caterpillar moves.
The rear of the city is a tangle of interconnected walkways, ladders, and shack-sized wooden buildings. In the rich district, near the head, buildings are larger and spaced apart. Mostly shops and the council's meeting chambers, each building here doubles as its owner's mansion. Unlike the maze of walkways behind the House of First Ascension, the rich district does not have multiple levels. In order to protect their shops (and more importantly, their social stratification), the leaders of the city have kept the walkways limited to a single path, allowing the lavish buildings to loom over visitors and merchants.
Districts
Split into two districts, rich and poor. The rich district starts just behind the head and stretches just past the six true legs of the caterpillar. Buildings and shops here do not hang down the sides of Thywicket, sitting exclusively atop the insect's back.
At the edge of the rich district, just before the House of First Ascension, is a wizard's tower, made of stone. It is home to Wren Hollowoak, Thephani Starwatcher, Pendeghast Riverton, and Orlock, the students under the tutelage of Folgorath.
- During the course of the campaign, this tower was destroyed by cranium rats, after its supports were broken to topple it on to the church.
History
During the events of the campaign, the city was under assault by a mind flayer and his intellect devourers. Cranium rats secretly patrolled the walkways at night. Several important merchants, council members, and churchmembers had already been replaced by intellect devourers. At night, a mindflayer was sneaking inside the caterpillar through its spiracles- the breathing hole of the giant insect- and infesting the seven ganglia with tadpoles. One of its dominant ganglia was parasitized by the mindflayer's pet intellect devourers, which caused the city to stop its migration. Several of its ganglia were parasitized by mindflayer tadpoles before he was found out by the party. They managed to prevent the mindflayer from infesting the final dominant ganglion, and killed the aberration inside the guts of the caterpillar. Damaged and infested, Thywicket cocooned itself and began an early metamorphosis in an instinctive attempt to protect itself from the illithid tadpoles within. It remains cocooned at the edge of the Coral Forest for now.
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