Throne Gate Ruins

A ruined Cul’sir city hides a perilous secret; any who sleep within enter a dream world of danger and discovery. One of the most familiar sights for adventurers heading out of Stormreach are the broken towers of the Throne Gate Ruins, named for the inscription on the arch leading within. Scholars believe that the small city sat on the main road into the Cul’sir Empire, and marked the defensive border of the original city-state before it started conquering its neighbors. The ruins have been plundered long ago, and serve as a common ‘first dungeon’ for Stormreach adventurers.

The Storm Lords encourage this, in part to dissuade any dangerous monsters from settling there and becoming a threat to the city. Throne Gate is a classic example of Cul’sir architecture, with massive buildings containing smaller quarters for slaves, and deep tunnels beneath the city for the lower castes and oneiric infrastructure. These are dangerous, of course, but the true danger of the ruins is known only to a select few - for most who sleep within the ruins of Throne Gate never wake again.

Whether due to a humming eldritch machine, or the magic backlash of the city’s destruction, an intact facsimile of Throne Gate still exists in Dal Quor. Anyone resting in the ruins finds themselves waking up ‘as normal’, with the shining city of Throne Gate rising with rainbow splendor. The overgrown jungle and shattered masonry are replaced by spotless roads and flower beds. The towers soar for hundreds of feet, many floating without support. The sight is awe-inspiring, but canny adventurers quickly notice that the roads are empty and the air silent.

This is a dead city, for the dreamers who wandered these streets died long ago. Unfortunately for those sleeping giants, their minds remained trapped as their bodies were destroyed in the waking world, consigning them to an eternity of limbo. Now, the only things they have left are hope and insanity. They know that new arrivals to Throne Gate possess bodies - and the remnants of the giants yearn to possess them. The longer adventurers spend exploring the dream-city, the more they can learn of Cul’sir culture, but the greater the risk of falling prey to the hungry id-wraiths* within. A character killed in the dream has their mind overtaken by an insane giant ghost, and wakes up with an entirely new outlook on life.

The most dangerous wraiths are those with the cunning to try and disguise their presence, acting out the role of the unlucky adventurer just long enough to cause all kinds of mayhem. It’s possible that more than one archaic ghost is currently trying to learn Stormreach slang and catch up on 40,000 years of history.